Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard - The Dark Knight (2008)

Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard - The Dark Knight (2008)
I can't help but find it a little amusing that the common complaint/compliment/comment about this soundtrack is that it fits the movie. For a big budget summer action flick as anticipated as The Dark Knight was, a notable chunk of that budget was sure to go to composing the soundtrack, and rightly so. The music of a scene in a film is often as important as the acting, directing, or cinematography, arguably more so. It plays its part in drawing the emotion out of its audience, letting you know how you should feel about the situation, view certain characters and/or actions. Hearing that The Dark Knight soundtrack fits the film, I can't help but recall that famous Chris Rock joke where he berates people who brag about things they're supposed to do. "I take care of my kids." "The music fits the movie." To paraphrase Rock: "[It's] supposed to, you dumb motherfucker!"

That being said...this music fits the film really well. The dark, brooding, sometimes intense feel of the film owes a great deal to the compositions that Zimmer and Howard created, which make excellent use of aggressive string sections, forceful drumming and, as my fiancèe brilliantly put it, "epic brass". The back-to-back combo of the opening track, "Why So Serious?", and "I'm Not A Hero", is such a jaw-dropping 15-minutes of music that the middle of the album seems to drag in comparison. This isn't helped by the fact that some sections throughout the album tend to build up only to transition suddenly (read: drop out entirely) to nearly inaudible sections of delicate horns and violins. It screams for corrective equalization.

The album as a whole though, played in one sitting and making indiscriminate use of gapless playback, is quite an experience. But the dilemma continues. That being that I find myself again reviewing yet another soundtrack for a film that I loved and wondering if my feelings would be the same had I either hated or not seen the film. Maybe an objective stance on the quality of this music is beyond my abilities to provide, but really, is any music review completely objective?

The bottom line is that I think that this would be a great listening experience even if it weren't attached to a film. In fact, it reminds me a lot of last year's fantastic A World In Their Screams album by the French neo-classical group Elend, which wasn't attached to a film but felt like it should've been. With both albums, the music is powerful and controls the mood effectively. The only difference between them is that one allows you create your own images in your mind and the other has already done it for you. But if the music has done its part, the source for the imagery doesn't much matter.


Score: 8/10


"I'm Not A Hero"


"Watch The World Burn"